New York, Feb 13, 2026, 18:47 (EST) — After-hours
- Cloudflare finished Friday’s session up roughly 5.8%. Shares barely budged in after-hours trading.
- Several analysts bumped up their price targets this week, following the company’s update on outlook and backlog metrics.
- Investors are eyeing a shortened U.S. trading week, with attention turning to the company’s upcoming conference appearance.
Cloudflare, Inc. jumped 5.8% to finish at $195.85 on Friday, notching another gain after a volatile patch for growth-focused software stocks. Shares changed hands between $184.45 and $198.87 during the session, and hovered close to that closing mark in after-hours trading. 1
Nasdaq slipped into the red, with traders pulling in risk just before the U.S. Presidents Day break on Monday. “Large cap tech stocks continue to be an anchor on the market and any whiff of optimism continues to get rejected,” said Michael James, managing director at Rosenblatt Securities. 2
Cloudflare faces a key question: can AI-fueled traffic and so-called “agentic” software actually convert to paid usage quickly enough to justify its lofty valuation? The market, for its part, is still worried about both disruption and heavy spending throughout the tech sector.
Citigroup’s Fatima Boolani reaffirmed her Buy on Cloudflare this Thursday, bumping her target up a notch to $265 from $260—a modest shift among a flurry of target changes since results landed. Others have been tweaking their numbers in both directions lately, a clear sign investors can’t agree on the value of “better” growth at this stage. 3
Baird’s Shrenik Kothari bumped Cloudflare up to Outperform, slapping a $260 price target on the stock. Calling the latest quarter “the strongest confirmation yet” for Cloudflare’s growth story, Kothari flagged that multiple drivers are “compounding simultaneously.” Baird highlighted accelerating remaining performance obligations—a key indicator of future revenue still on the books—plus a new record for annual contract value, and predicted “a step-function increase” in traffic from agentic AI. 4
Baird pointed out Cloudflare’s net retention rate climbed to 120%—an indication customers are ramping up spending even with pressure on enterprise tech budgets. Analysts also noted better sales productivity, describing the company’s 2026 growth targets as “prudent.” 5
Earlier this week, the company posted its fourth-quarter numbers: adjusted earnings landed at $0.28 per share, with revenue climbing to $614.5 million—a 34% jump from last year. Its release and analysts’ commentary confirmed the gains. William Blair’s Jonathan Ho called it “another very strong quarter,” highlighting the 2026 outlook as a fresh benchmark for investors after a shaky run for software shares. 6
Cloudflare, known for its products that accelerate and protect internet traffic, has been ramping up promotion of its Workers platform. This developer tool lets clients deploy code near end users — a point the company has been emphasizing as it pitches for AI-driven workloads.
Investors kept a close eye on the edge-network sector this week. Fastly shares jumped Friday, lifted by a quarterly sales beat and strong outlook—a signal that “picks-and-shovels” internet infrastructure can still command a premium when the data hits. 7
Filings brought some fresh details late in the week. According to a Schedule 13G/A, Capital World Investors disclosed a stake of about 36.4 million Cloudflare shares—good for roughly 11.5% of the class. A separate 13G/A put CEO Matthew Prince’s beneficial ownership at nearly 26.3 million shares, or around 7.7% of Class A, based on the filing’s figures. 8
The risk here is clear enough: Should AI-driven traffic spikes fail to turn into ongoing billings, or if enterprise customers ease up on contract growth, Cloudflare’s run-up could evaporate in a hurry. Wild intraday moves in the shares this week have shown just how sharply sentiment can shift in high-multiple software names.
Next, investors are eyeing whether the stock keeps its gains when trading resumes Tuesday after the U.S. holiday. Any new broker revisions are also in focus. Cloudflare is also on the agenda for Morgan Stanley’s Technology, Media & Telecom Conference, set for March 3, the company’s investor site shows. 9
